Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, on October 31, 2017, announced it will establish a “New Energy Vehicle Solution Center” on November 1, 2017, directly under the China Business Unit to accelerate engagement with the Chinese new energy vehicle (NEV) market.

With the announcements by the governments of Britain and France of policies aimed at prohibiting the manufacture and sale of gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040, the trend away from gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles and toward electric vehicles (EVs), and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHVs) is gathering pace. China has positioned EVs, PHVs, and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) as “NEVs” and considers this sector to be a strategic national industry. The Chinese government has announced a policy aimed at expanding production and sales of new energy vehicles to 2 million units annually by 2020 and increasing the share of total automobiles produced and sold accounted for by new energy vehicles to more than 20 percent by 2025. To accelerate this effort and to expand the transition into NEV, the Chinese government has also announced its plan to implement a credit-score program from 2018, which make carmakers that manufacture or import NEVs obliged to obtain a NEV score, which is linked to the average amount of fuel consumption and the proportion of the number of NEVs they import. Under these regulations, China is expected to drive the adoption of NEVs worldwide.

Renesas recognizes that China is now the world’s largest market for new energy vehicles and an advanced market for new energy vehicle development. As such, Renesas will establish the new organization in order to actively engage in local innovation and market opportunities and to reflect these insights in the planning and development of solutions as well as the formulation and implementation of plans for cultivating new business. The new organization will work in an agile, flexible manner to advance Renesas’ efforts in the Chinese market and will operate directly under the China Business Unit, which was set up in March 2017 with the aim of unifying in a single business unit sales, marketing, design and development, and manufacturing functions for the Chinese market.

In November 2015 Renesas announced a strategic partnership with National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), a Swedish company in which the Chinese government holds a majority investment, and in May 2017 Renesas announced a strategic partnership with Great Wall Motors, China’s largest manufacturer of SUVs and pick-up trucks. The new organization will play a key role in promoting these strategic partnerships, thereby accelerating the development of solutions for the Chinese new energy vehicle market and contributing to the expansion of the market overall.